Blog
Is Activision Plagiarism Laundering??
An interesting and tricky legal question that I will have to be careful in dancing around. While credit laundering is legally speaking not the motive, it looks rather a lot like it’s the effect.Not too long ago Activision/Blizzard had yet another scandal. Hearthstone had sold some cards that turned out to have been created by generative AI. Now this was not actually company policy, this was just some stuff that was outsourced to an “artist” who let his computer do...
Christmas Weekend Roundup
Sonic 3 Runs Mufasa Into the GroundThe spikey blue hedgehog ran the Lion King's old man into the ground. Sonic's take is $62 million. Mufasa pulled in a decidedly second place $35 million. This isn't remotely a surprise. This loss was mostly due to Disney's corporate arrogance. They moved Mufasa onto Sonic 3's weekend and just assumed that Paramount would slink away with its tail between its legs when challenged by the awesome might of Disney's biggest animation...
Looks Better Than Snyderverse Superman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhUht6vAsMY My opinions:I don't think a single movie has ever had so much riding on it or had so many things going against it.Marvel doesn't have anything warming up in the batter's box that's going to make any money. Sam Wilson's Captain America movie has cost so much to make it would have to pull in $2 billion before it could see a profit and it's not going to be doing that. The Thunderbolts is already dead and...
The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend: Kraven
Yeah, I can tell you’re surprised. The Spider-Man-free Spider-Man movies were an idea only a Hollywood producer could love. Certainly, no one else did. As far as I can tell, Amy Pascal knew she was in the process of being fired. She had been caught up in the Sony email scandal saying some excessively honest things about people like Angelina Jolie. That, plus a string of underperforming movies that had her name attached to them had her in Tom Rothman’s gun...
Dear Jag, This Is How You Take Care of a Brand
First a little background. Everyone except car dealers hates car dealerships. Yeah, I know and water is wet. Car dealerships were one of those FDR Goldilocks programs, they showed up for dinner uninvited and never left. The thinking at the time was that it would allow car manufacturers to concentrate on research and development. A few of its advocates had the nerve to claim it was a huge success because of America's automobile dominance in the 1950s, ignoring...
The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend War of the Rohirrim
I shall now damn this movie with the faintest praise I can give to anything. It’s not as bad as The Rings of Power.The story this is based on is in the appendices. Here is the quick and dirty. The Dunelendings were the descendants of swarthy men who had sided with Morgoth. Like all of his servants they served unwillingly but serve him they did which gave the Numenoreans a beef with them when they got that far East. When the kings...
Never Apologize
REPOST: Originally posted Dec 2021Why was In the Heights #canceled?Oh, there is the official reason but that has nothing to do with why it got put on blast by all the major media outlets within twenty-four hours. It wasn’t the real reason the film had its box office burned to the ground and its creator was forced to make a groveling apology.The Dark Herald will fill you in on that a little later.First the background. In the Heights, was a 2008 Broadway...
The (Sony Exclusive) Game Awards 2024
Well that was hot garbage. At least I played one of these award winning Sony Exclusives this year.Astro Bot — 4 wins (including Game of the Year), 7 nominationsMetaphor: ReFantazio — 3 wins, 6 nominationsBalatro — 3 wins, 5 nominationsBlack Myth: Wukong — 2 wins, 5 nominationsHelldivers 2 — 2 wins, 4 nominationsSenua's Sage: Hellblade 2 — 2 wins (including lead actor Melina Juergens' win for Best Performance), 4 nominationsHelldivers 2 did win my heart last night. During the awards what...
The Sony Buyout of Kadkowa Moves Forward
That headline either means nothing at all to you, or it makes you sick to your stomach. I can’t think of a worse custodian for Kadakowa unless it’s Disney. It’s hard to come up with an anime studio with a richer history than Kadokawa. Yes, Ghibli is more beloved but when you compare the body of work… Well, you can’t compare the body of work because they are on two entirely different planes of existence. Putting the studio that created Your Name...
Sony Kills the Spiderverse
Tom Rothman has had enough. The chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures is done with superheroes. He got bumped up from Tri-Star to head Sony Pictures after his predecessor ran Columbia Pictures so far into the ground Sony Japan was seriously considering dumping it on the highest bidder. The problem was that Columbia was in such bad shape nobody was interested. In the post-DVD-crash world, franchises were king and Sony only had two. Spiderman and Adam Sandler. Everything...
Ubisoft Buyout Hits a Snag
Ubisoft's only hope right now is a buyout from Chinese giant Tencent. It looked like that was exactly what was going to happen. Except it turns out that Tencent isn't insane, which is a considerable stumbling block to this buyout going through. You see, the Guillemot, who has led the company into its current disastrous state wants to retain control of Ubisoft after the deal goes through. Tencent hasn't said why it's not cool with leaving Ubisoft's founding...
RE:Animation – My Neighbor Totoro
Tonari No Totoro like Rashomon is one of those films that a certain type of leftie likes to claim they totally love because it is so super deep on so many, many levels, and only urban sophisticates like themselves can truly appreciate how mind-bogglingly deep and complex the story is. And the odds are good they’ve never actually seen it. I never met one that has actually seen Rashomon either. My Neighbor Totoro is a good and not very deep movie. It’s...
K-Pop Horror Story
K-Pop's treatment of their "Idols" is actually worse than the American music industry provided you didn't run into someone like Puff Diddler (I don't know how low the odds of that are).KG Crown (real name Kiera Grace Mudder) is a young pop performer who entered a survival show run by JY Park Entertainment called A2K. Basically a cattle call for American girls who love K-Pop and want to become Idols. All of them are minors, KG herself was...
The Final Solution to the Drow Problem
Screen Rant is declaring that WOTC "Must Deal with its Drow PROBLEM" before they can make a Drizzt movie.The problem is leftie brain-washing versus the foundations of storytelling.The dumb is just exhausting.In a nutshell, they're demanding the Drow be de-evil-ized because their brainwashing demands it. The fundamental problem is if you do that you completely ruin the character of Drizzt Do'urden. Look I'm not a member of the Church of Drizzt, but I was there when he was first...
Snow White’s Trailer: A Horror Story
Or at least I assume that's what it's going to be. It certainly looks like one. There is precedence for it. They weren't called Grimm fairy tales for nothing. In an early version of the story, the queen is actually Snow White's mother and loves her daughter deeply but then she is turned against her own child by the demonic power of a magic mirror that always tells the truth. The Charmed Prince executes her by making...
First Impressions: DC’s Creature Commandos
The star is always front and centerThis is the first of James Gunn’s new DC Universe shows. Unless you count his James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad or James Gunn’s Peacemaker, regardless, this is the first project of his where he holds the keys to the kingdom.The truth be said, Gunn usually does better with a co-writer suppressing his worst instincts. He doesn’t have one with Creature Commandoes.Let’s get at it.The logo is a rather promising start. It shows the OG...
James Potter Was Racist
Meet the guy who is in talks with HBO to play Snape.From the Hollywood Reporter:HBO is circling British actor Paapa Essiedu to play one of the hottest TV roles being cast this year.The I May Destroy You actor is up for the role of Professor Severus Snape in HBO’s Harry Potter TV series, multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. Sources say the actor has been offered the part although it is not clear if negotiations have begun in earnest.The weasel wording indicates that...
Is Daily Wire Collapsing? Is Brett Cooper Being Fired?
Those are good clickbait questions. But I am starting to wonder.Brett Cooper the star of Daily Wire's Comments Section with Brett Cooper as well as Daily Wire's upcoming Pendragon Cycle and Snow White is rumored to have landed in hot water with her boss Jeremy Boering and will not have her contract renewed.Yesterday I picked up on this one over on X.com. And I immediately dismissed it. Especially after Nick Fuentes claimed she was being fired for...
RE:View Forbidden Planet
UPDATE: 12/4/24 Earl Holliman, long standing Hollywood character actor and last remaining star of the 1956 sci-fi classic has passed away. In Cookie's honor I have bumped up this post.Forbidden Planet is arguably the most influential space opera of the 20th century. Yes, I’m including 2001, Star Wars, and Alien in that statement. The reason is simple it was genesis. There were elements of all three of those films in Forbidden Planet. Sure, there were space opera movies before Forbidden Planet. But most...
Hiding the Car the Was Understandable
Jag-you-are's newest concept model has been leaked.No wonder they didn't show it on their commercial.This is the final result of a company that has gone into the DEI deep end. This is as creative as Jaguar can get."Copy nothing". Wasn't that what was on their horrifying commercial? This thing is nothing but copies and they are bad copies.The front end they copied from Rolls Royce. The front quarter they copied from Lexus. The rear quarter they copied from...
The Dark Herald Recommends Moana 2
Moana 2, AKA Viana, 2 AKA Oceana 2 (depending on the market) was a crash project born from the ashes of last year’s disastrous animated film, Wish. That movie was the end product of Bob Iger’s disastrous DEI initiatives. Wish was to be the Walt Disney Company’s 100th Anniversary film and it seemed to show just how far the company had fallen in a century. This was Jennifer Lee’s big project. Here’s a quick refresher about her.It was about...
Why Batman Really Needs the Batcave
No, it's not just a place for him to keep his stuff. Batman is profoundly, psychologically dependent on the Batcave. It's complicated but so is Bruce Wayne.Have you ever gotten the feeling that when Bruce is alone in the cave and then Alfred or (whichever) Robin walks in, it's rather an intrusion isn't it? He never kicks them out but they don't belong there. Not in the way that he does. There's a reason for that.At first there was just...
RE:Play Redneck Rampage
Having covered all of the old Sierra games or at least all of the old Sierra games I gave a crap about, I decided to move on to the nineties proper. That means Doom clones and that means games built with the legendary Build engine.I'm not going into the history of the build engine here because I know it's ashamed to associated with this game.Instead of starting with one of the really great games like; Blood, Shadow Warrior, or Duke 3D. I...
The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend Gladiator II
“Jug-Jugurtha!” I blurted out laughing. It annoyed the people around me, which also made me laugh. If you don’t know anything about Roman history, making Jugurtha a Roman enemy during the (rather brief) Severan dynasty is comparable to having Generals Lee and Grant put aside their differences and team up against their common enemy, Henry VIII. It’s that stupid. Ridley Scott needed a black king and liked how the name sounded. You can tell that was the creative process.I suppose...
Disney Deathwatch: The Thanksgiving Edition
Captain America 4 is already DOAHere’s a shock, the latest round of test screenings went badly so they are going back, yet again, into reshoots. I have no idea how many times it has gone into reshoots at this point. The production budget is well north of $400 million and given the lack of interest it’s not going to make half of what it needs to, to make a profit. I kind of feel sorry for Anthony Mackie. He seems like...
The Dark Herald (sort of) Recommends: Wicked (PART I)
I can’t get across to my children what a Television Event used to be like. What it was in tangible terms is obvious, a marketing ploy and a very successful one. A captive audience of 70 million Americans is something a contemporary ad man doesn’t even dare dream of today, but that was what you’d have back then. If there was a Television Event being broadcast on one of the networks the other two just gave up for that night. They were...
And Now Bud Light is Rebranding
Yeah, sure. Why not?All I'm doing is freaking commercials now.Bottom line Bud Light is doing the big I'm So-o-o-o-r--r-r-r-r-r-r-y. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO6hngy9Ajw
Volvo Blows Jag-You-Are Totally Out of the Water
This is utterly ludicrous.Volvo just launched this four minute commercial on YouTube and it is everything that the Jaguar commercial is NOT.It's about a traditional family and a father's hopes and dreams for his daughter as he watches her grow up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQX-QXxwGvA The comments show all the difference in the world. People are saying that they hadn't considered a Volvo before but are now.This is the whole point of an advertisement. Volvo's marketing department has pantsed Jag's, knocked them on all...
The Dark Herald’s Game of the Year
I step out of the ruins of a record shop and onto the streets of Selaco. My health is 100% and I have plenty of ammo. Like a perfect nugget I’m admiring the scenery instead of checking the corner I’m about to step around.My reward for this stupidity was a flash and a boom heralding the loss of half my health. I chuck an ice grenade at the pair of SOBs while I slide out of their line of fire...
Hasbro Comes to Bury Gygax, Not to Praise Him
Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast are in the process of releasing their DEI drenched new rules for Dungeons and Dragons. As a kind of cross promotion they are releasing a companion book the 40th Anniversary Making of DnD.The forward of which absolutely castigates Gary Gygax for the unspeakable crime of not being a 21st-century Woketard.In celebration of this literary masterpiece, I'll be hosting a special game this weekend.Discuss on Social Galactic
RE:View – The Muppet Christmas Carol
No story on Earth has been done to death as thoroughly as Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. Every possible iteration on this classic story has been made. I tried to find out how many versions there were by typing “A Christmas Carol” into the IMDB search bar, and it called me an asshole.Or it may as well have. I stopped counting the screen adaptions when I hit the fifth search page of results. A Nashville Christmas Carol, A Country Christmas Carol, Dora’s Christmas...